May

6

Why We Ignore Toture Podcast

May 6, 2008 |

Eric FairMike ended up as solo babbler today. The subject was torture.

He had a choice Saturday between the Boston civic summit, which was certain to be lots of idealized talk and the seminar/panel Torture and the American Psyche: Blurring the Boundaries Between Healers and Interrogators.

The panel was at the First Parish (UU) Church in Brookline. However, the roughly dozen co-sponsors were largely mental health and physicians associations. The 150 or so attendants seemed to be mostly psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists.

Disclaimer: Mike attends that church and knows the social-action committee folk, as well as goes to coffee hour and church meetings in the hall where the seminar occurred.

The panel included Stephen Soldz Ph.D., a local psychoanalyst, social activist and professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, Leonard Rubenstein J.D., president of Physicians for Human Rights, David Sloan-Rossiter Ph.D., co-chair of the Curriculum Committee at Boston Institute for Psychotherapy and the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, and Eric Fair a former interrogator in Iraq who has been telling his story and calling for reform. The photo is of Fair.

The short of the seminar included:

  • This is not the first time, we as a nation have tortured and have overridden our Constitution and its amendments (think WWII interment camps, Cold War and Red Scare periods). When a lot is perceived to be at stake humanity and our values lose.
  • Despite the evidence that coerced information is worthless, too many in the chain of command have convinced themselves it is a regrettable necessity. It is not.
  • Psychologists have been key in devising and training on the worst, most effective ways of torturing captives.
  • The American Psychological Association is the only professional organization in any of the health fields that does not absolutely forbid its members from participating in torture.
  • Left without clear directives and discipline, our soldiers who otherwise act heroically, Fair said, “will wield that same violence in the most irresponsible of ways, to the shameof the very cause they swore to defend.”
  • The current Administration may need to go away before a new President stops the anti-American, anti-liberty acts against us and others.

Related Links:

Mike will post more on the panel in the next few days at Marry in Massachusetts.

icon for podpress  Torture panel [27:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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